Higher Education Minister
S.B. Dissanayaka told Parliament yesterday that the representatives of the
Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) during a meeting with President
Mahinda Rajapaksa had agreed to allow the Allied Health Sciences (AHS) undergraduates
to have a four year degree programme.
Minister Dissanayake said
that the agreement had been reached at a special meeting chaired by the
President and attended by the representatives of the GMOA, Ministries of Health
and Higher Education.
He said that the agreement
had provided a solution to a crisis situation owing to an agitation staged by
the Allied Health Sciences undergraduates, demanding that their degree
programme should be four years.
The minister said this in
response to a series of questions raised by UNP and Opposition Leader Ranil
Wickremesinghe, making a special statement in Parliament over the issue of
allied health sciences students’ protests.
Minister said it had been
agreed at the meeting to allow the AHS students to complete their degree
programmes either in four years or three years or three and a half years after
obtaining 120 credits. Those who could got 120 credits in three years could
graduate one year earlier than those who wished to do so in four year time
duration, the minister said. "This could be called a victory for the
Allied Health Sciences undergraduates. In foreign universities, too, the
students are allowed to complete their degree programmes in two or three years
though their duration is over three years."
UNP and Opposition Leader
Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday accused Higher Education Minister S.B.
Dissanayake of having misled Parliament by informing the House that the crisis
pertaining to Allied Health Sciences student had been sorted out by the
President.
Wickremesinghe addressing a
press conference attended by a group of Allied Health Sciences students at the
Parliament complex said the Minister early yesterday had told the House that
problems with regard to the AHS degree programme had been solved. "This is
not true. The minister said that the issue had been solved during a meeting
with the Government Medical Officers’ Association. The meeting was not attended
by the students. So, the issue has not been sorted out contrary to the
minister’s claim."
The undergraduates made a
request to the Opposition Leader to work for the safeguarding of the AHS degree
programmes introduced by a UNP government.
Wickremesinghe said:
"The government does not seriously address this problem. It has passed the
buck and shirked its responsibilities by the aggrieved undergraduates’ protests
reached the 164th day. Once it was the problem of the Ministry of Higher
education. Then suddenly the buck was passed to the court of the Ministry of
Health. Thereafter, the blame has been put at the doorstep of the GMOA. Now the
President has got involved to sort this out. Now, the ball is in the right
court. All you students have to do is to crank up pressure until your problems
are solved."
Wickremesinghe instructed
students to work closely with UNP MPs Ajith P Perera and Akila Viraj
Kariyawasam, who, too, were present on the occasion, to decide their future
courses of action.
Source – island newspaper